The festivals 16-20

1982 to 1986

16 / 1982

“Surely, the future can’t lie in soulless products of computer-generated films that forget about human lives and the effects of which are just skin-deep.”

“New films from the USA, England, France, Switzerland, Italy, Ireland and the German Democratic Republic: stories of people and their emotions, the things they do, what they think, how they live their lives, what they dream.”

17 / 1983

“I’m pleased to be able to introduce two generations of American filmmakers this year: Samuel Fuller and John Sayles. Samuel Fuller shows his classic FORTY GUNS and the rarely seen WHITE DOG. And John Sayles will, for the first time, present his work as a filmmaker in a retrospective.”

“The program raises hopes for the cinema’s future as we imagine it – not cautious and timid, but independent and confident.”

18 / 1984

“Two film directors will present their films for the very first time in Germany: Vincent Ward from New Zealand and Paul Cox from Australia. And as is wont, the independent American cinema is represented in Hof: John Sayles, Amos Poe, Rick King, Wes Craven, Jim Jarmusch, Jerry R. Barrish, Marta Thoma and Melvie Arslanian.”

“And the New German Cinema? The examples shown here prove once more that the German film’s real forte is its artistic power and fantasy which no number of laws can stop.”

19 / 1985

“The German film’s real forte is its artistic power and fantasy. Sometimes such a sentence is ridiculed since the German cinema ran out of steam 1985 the latest. The reality of 1985, however, is that never before were as many German films invited as this year.”

“Quantity rather than quality? By no means. Of course not all films will appeal to all tastes, but a selection without sources of friction would be plain boring.”

20 / 1986

“HOF also stands for HOME OF FILMS, Wim Wenders said who was here from the beginning, as was Werner Herzog. We love being a HOME OF FILMS, that’s good. Where else does the cinema have a home?”

“And what next? What does the future hold in store for films? Curiosity about first productions, the possibilities of experimentations, and the ‘big’ cinema. These three elements make us look confidently into the cinema´s future.”